GEOLOGY. 559 



If any of the animals which the remote periods of the 

 globe present to our notice are to be looked upon as mon- 

 sters, we submit that in this respect the first place is due to 

 the Pterodactyli, which remind one of the ancient dragons 

 of legendary tradition. Their structure is so paradoxical 

 that one does not really know where to place them ; they 

 were alternately looked upon as birds, mammals, and rep- 

 tiles. De Blainville, embarrassed, as, indeed, all the learned 

 world were, formed a separate class for them in the animal 

 kingdom. 1 



The aspect of the pterodactyl was necessarily very 

 strange. When naturalists tried to restore their frames, the 

 figures they produced were more like the offspring of some 

 diseased imagination than realities. They were really rep- 

 tiles furnished with large wings, and resembled enormous 

 bats, having a very pointed head supported on a slender 

 neck. The smaller species certainly lived on insects, for 

 the remains of these have been found among fossilized 

 skeletons. 2 



Certain naturalists, among them Bory de Saint-Vincent, 

 have been almost inclined to think that these fantastic ani- 

 mals may have suggested the first idea of those images of 

 dragons so frequently represented on the monuments pro- 

 duced in the infancy of art, or whose existence is affirmed 



1 There were air-cavities in the bones of the pterodactyls, and the coracoid pro- 

 cess, the scapula, and the broad sternum with its median crest allied them in 

 anatomical points to birds. Popular Science Review, vol. vii., p. 242. TR. 



2 To these amphibious reptiles must now be added several others. Three new 

 genera have been recently discovered in the Castlecomer coal-measures in Kil- 

 kenny. Remains of another new genus, the Pliosaurus, presented to the British 

 Museum, show that the skull of this creature was nearly five feet long. TR. 



